Collins Dictionary, based in London and Glasgow, got a head start on the WOTY competition in early November, selectingfake news over runners-up such as unicorn, echo chamber, and gig economy. (Related: My November 2016 post on fake.)

October 19, 2017

During my recent trip to VancouverI attended five screenings at the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF). The films were good – I especially enjoyed Lucky, the actor Harry Dean Stanton’s last movie (he died in September); and You’re Soaking in It, a disturbing Canadian-produced documentary about data-driven advertising – but what most impressed me about the festival didn’t appear on the screen. It was, instead, a 32-word statement read by a presenter before each screening.

When I returned home I emailed VIFF to get the precise wording of the statement. Here it is:

First we would like to acknowledge that we are on the unceded Indigenous land belonging to the Coast Salish peoples, including the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, Stolo, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

Five films, five readings, each exactly the same except for one ad-lib when the presenter looked up after “unceded” and commented: “I guess we aren’t yet allowed to say stolen.”

Now, I attend film festivals pretty regularly here in the Bay Area, which is also – like much of these United States – unceded Indigenous land. Has anyone ever acknowledged that fact here? Not even once. Not even at the most politically astute events.

Between screenings, and after I left Vancouver, I thought a lot about that word unceded. Its root, cede, has a legal meaning: to yield or grant, especially by means of a treaty. This Vancouver land hadn’t been ceded. It had been taken long ago by British colonizers. Stolen.

I asked the VIFF organizers how this acknowledgment came about. Was it unique to VIFF? The response was prompt and clear:

It is quite common in Vancouver for organizations to publicly acknowledge that they are on unceded land belonging to the Coast Salish peoples, particularly arts, culture, and educational organizations. This is part of Canada's ongoing reconciliation with the First Nations peoples. VIFF believes in the importance of this reconciliation. This is the first year that VIFF has made this acknowledgment before each screening, but we are actually latecomers to this practise, as other local film festivals and live event exhibitors have been doing it for quite a few years now.

Repeating an acknowledgment about unceded land and the people who refused to cede it – five, 50, or 500 times – will not change history. But it makes an impression that lingers and deepens. It changes the way you look at your surroundings, the way you think about how you and your forebears got here, the way you think about what you owe to those who came long before. For the institutions that commit to the acknowledgment, it’s a powerful form of branding – of communicating character and purpose. It’s a step away from the spotlight, which is an unusual and admirable thing for a film festival to do, when you think about it.

October 06, 2017

Last week I took the Coast Starlight to Seattle, a city I hadn’t visited in decades, and Vancouver, BC, where I’d never been at all. The journey was leisurely and scenic, the weather was mild and dry, and the political climate shift after I crossed the border was startling in the best possible way. I don’t think I’d fully appreciated how exhausting it has been, over the last 18 months or so, to live in the U.S. until I found myself in a country where sanity and courtesy appear to be the norm.

Oh, and I did some brand-spotting. The theme: portmanteaus, good and bad.

July 12, 2017

When is a billboard not a billboard? When it’s a freakin’ 227-word manifesto – 239 if you include the headline.

“This is our only billboard. We need it to say a lot.” No you don’t.

Yes, I counted the words in this screwy outdoor ad from Public Mobile, a Canadian wireless-telecom company. (I lifted the photo from Tim Nudd’s post on Adweek, which called the ad “clever.” I disagree.)

May 18, 2017

Should you spend $1.5 million on a domain? Almost certainly not. As A Hundred Monkeys puts it: “While your emotions should guide you in naming dogs, kids, and boats, they need to take a back seat while you mull over dropping seven figures on a domain.”

September 16, 2015

Canadian retailer Kit and Ace – see my post about the company name here – is adding coffee shops to its boutiques: The first Sorry Coffee opens tomorrow in Toronto. “Sorry” can mean “worthless” or “inferior,” but here it’s “an attempt to poke fun at Canadians — a winking nod to the quick-to-apologize stereotype,” co-founder J.J. Wilson toldthe Star. Be sure to pronounce it the Canadian way: SORE-ee.

March 27, 2015

One side of a sandwich board in front of the John Fluevog store on Grant Avenue, San Francisco:

“Know You’re Weird!”

The other side:

“No, You’re Weird!”

The resemblance to the “Keep Calm and Carry On” oeuvre is probably not coincidental, but the weirdness and wordplay are pure Fluevog. The Canadian shoe company is weird and proud of it, starting with its name—John Fluevog is the founder and chief designer—and carrying on, as it were, through the merchandise.

The Neptune, perfect for a gala at the natural history museum or a stroll through the Everglades.

Lots of companies pay lip service to customer service and community, but Fluevog is the rare business that follows through. Its community (or “Flummunity”) includes a marketplace (“Fluemarket”) for secondhand Fluevog shoes and an invitation to submit a shoe design. Quite a few submissions have made the cut. (It’s “open source,” so no one gets paid, but the citizen-designer gets a free pair and the honor of having the design named after her or him.)

I’m a Vogger myself: I own two pairs of Fluevog sandals (these and these), whose styling skews toward the less-weird end of the Fluevog spectrum but is still distinctive enough to elicit admiring comments. (I think they’re admiring.) The shoes are beautifully made and very, very comfortable.

February 04, 2015

The company has an athleisure*(athletic + leisure) pedigree: one of the co-founders, Shannon Wilson, is married to Chip Wilson, who founded the yogawear pioneer Lululemon. The other co-founder is Chip’s oldest son, JJ. (Chip Wilson, who is an informal adviser to Kit and Ace, “resigned from Lululemon’s board last year, after a disastrous episode involving unintentionally see-through yoga pants,” writes Widdicombe.)

Where did the Kit and Ace name come from? Here’s Widdicombe:

JJ oversees branding for the Kit and Ace line. The name, he explained, refers to two imaginary “muses” that he and Shannon came up with. Kit is the name Shannon would have given a daughter (for Vancouver’s Kitsilano beach, “where all my dreams came true,” she said). “I think of Kit as Shannon in her heyday,” JJ said. “An artist at heart, a creator. A West Coast girl. An athlete.” Ace, her masculine counterpart, is “a West Coast guy. He likes things that are easy and carefree.” He filled out the picture: Ace surfs. “He’s graduated college. He’s thirty-two. He’s maybe dating The One.”

Could Ace be modelled on JJ? His parents teased. “He’s a bit of a pain in the ass!” Shannon said.

“A little pretentious,” Chip said, laughing.

There’s no explanation of the symbol that stands in for “and.”

Besides being plausible personal names, kit and ace have other relevant meanings. Kit can mean “a set of articles or implements used for a specific purpose” (a survival kit; a shaving kit), while ace can mean “expert” or “first rate.” Both words can function as verbs (to kit out, to ace a serve) as well as nouns.

This isn’t JJ’s first foray into retail, or into company names that follow the X + Y formula: He founded Wings + Horns, a menswear company, in Vancouver in 2004.

Kit and Ace sells clothes made from a washable fabric blend the company calls Qemir (sometimes uncapitalized; pronunciation uncertain): 81 percent viscose, 9 percent cashmere, 10 elastene. The company has applied for trademark protection for “Qemir” and for a tagline: “Technical Cashmere.”